How to make the best of iOS 6’s Do Not Disturb feature

Need to keep iOS 6's notifications at bay?

iOS 5 introduced a centralized Notification Center to handle all of iOS's little alerts—"Bleep! You have a new tweet!" "Blurp! Time to play Words with Friends!" "Blort! Remember to pick up the dry cleaning!" Notification Center's introduction in 2011 was a long time coming, and a welcome improvement to iOS's previous modal-only pop-up alerts. Despite Notification Center's long gestation, however, it lacked what many consider a critical feature—"do not disturb."

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Apple was adding Do Not Disturb to Notification Center—but in OS X Mountain Lion. The feature lets users drag down on the notification list, revealing a switch. When clicked, all the banners and other alerts simply stop appearing until the next day. The notifications do, however, still pile up in Notification Center.

We hoped that Apple would migrate the feature back to iOS, and add one important tweak: scheduling. We were delighted when Apple unveiled iOS 6 during its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, promising Do Not Disturb would finally—yes, finally—be coming to iOS 6.

Why I need Do Not Disturb

Notification Center was a big improvement over iOS's previous alerts. With careful management of notifications, I can keep on top of appointments, stay relatively up to date with my friends via social media, and not miss a turn in Draw Something.

But my girlfriend rises early for a long commute to her office in the morning, and usually goes to bed well before us "respectable" geeks. And with friends and colleagues all over the globe, I get notifications at all hours of the night. When I'm in bed, my phone will light up and buzz all night while it is charging. But even if I'm not, the iPad that generally sits on the bedside table will fill the room with a bright, eerie glow. I sleep like a log, so it doesn't bother me in the slightest; my girlfriend, though, is a different matter.

I could go in and turn Notifications on and off everyday, or some other inconvenient workaround, but I'd invariably end up forgetting to turn them off or back on. Do Not Disturb will keep these nocturnal intrusions at bay on a schedule I set, so they'll never disturb my girlfriend's uneasy slumber.

Your reasons for using Do Not Disturb may differ—maybe you are a light sleeper yourself, or maybe you just need to limit work-related or other distractions. For those who rely on iOS's notifications to keep abreast of appointments, to-dos, important e-mails, or even just Ticket to Ride Pocket challenges—but still occasionally need to sleep, spend time with family, or just take a technology break—Do Not Disturb is for you. Here's how to take advantage of its features.

How it works

Enlarge/ You can switch "Do Not Disturb" on in the Settings app on iOS 6.

Launch the Settings app on your iOS device and you'll see the Do Not Disturb setting right above Notifications. Tap the switch to "on," and you'll no longer see banner alerts, hear sounds or buzzes, or see your iPhone screen light up from across the room while it is locked. You won't even hear a ring if someone calls. Notifications, messages, and missed calls will still be collected by your device, but your iPhone (or iPad, or iPod touch) will remain dark and silent, as if nothing was happening at all.

A small crescent moon icon will appear in the status bar right next to the time, letting you know that Do Not Disturb is activated. If you want to turn it off, just head back to Settings, and switch the setting back to "off." Your device will return to its usual flashing, buzzing, beeping self.

Right on schedule

Instead of having to manually engage Do Not Disturb, though, Apple has included a scheduling feature. In Settings > Notifications > Do Not Disturb, you can set a "quiet period" that will automatically go into effect every day. For instance, I have the schedule set from 11pm to 7am on my iPhone, when I am usually asleep. I have it set to engage much earlier on my iPad, to keep it from lighting up like a disco while my girlfriend is sleeping, and I'm in the other room engaged in a heated Twitter debate. Notifications, ringtones, and other alerts come back on automatically when 7am rolls around.

Do Not Disturb has some useful settings, including a scheduling option to silence Notifications at night, and turn them back on in the morning.

On OS X, Do Not Disturb will automatically shut itself off the next day, so you don't have to remember to switch notifications back on. On iOS, it works a little differently if you turn it on manually. If you have no schedule set, you have to manually turn Do Not Disturb off. If you do have a schedule set, however, Do Not Disturb will shut off automatically at your regularly scheduled time. If you have a regular schedule, you can use the manual switch to turn Do Not Disturb off before your usual time if you so choose, and it will still shut itself off at the scheduled time. For me, that means I could manually turn it on at 8pm if I wish (despite my 11pm to 7am schedule), and it will turn itself off at 7am.

Finally, if you want Do Not Disturb to activate for an extended period, manually turn it on, and then turn off your set schedule. Notifications won't bother you while you're sipping tropical cocktails on the sandy beaches of Turks and Caicos, or on safari in the jungles of Africa.

Never miss an important call

Enlarge/ In addition to setting a schedule (left), you can can let calls from certain people "disturb" you, no matter what.

While Do Not Disturb will silence incoming phone calls, you can still configure Do Not Disturb to let certain calls through. By default, Do Not Disturb will ring your iPhone whenever calls come from anyone in your "Favorites" list in contacts. You can alternately choose any group you have set up in Contacts, such as "Work," "Friends," or " Important Clients." You can also select "Everyone" to let all calls ring through, or "No One" if you don't want to talk to anyone for any reason (like when napping, playing Borderlands 2, or finally watching season 4 of Breaking Bad).

iOS 6 also has an optional "Repeated Calls" setting that will let a second call from any caller ring through if it is within three minutes of the first call. This may be a useful stop-gap on the off-chance you get an emergency call from an unexpected number. (For instance, a friend recently lost their phone while at a conference in New York and needed me to use Find My iPhone to help track it down; they called from someone else's phone.) This setting is on by default, but you can turn it off if your ex just can't let it go and keeps hitting redial.

What's missing?

Do Not Disturb on iOS is still missing an important usability feature: access from Notification Center itself. If you want to turn it on, you'll have to go into the Settings app to do so. We think there should be an easier way—one already implemented in Mountain Lion—and that's from Notification Center itself. You can already check the weather, send a tweet, and update your Facebook status; there's no good reason we can think of not to include the "pull down to reveal" switch from OS X.

Other improvements we think would be useful include finer grained scheduling, offering optional times for weekends, or even setting a different schedule for every day of the week. Additionally, it would be useful to have Do Not Disturb work on a timer you could set for a certain amount of time, like two hours for a movie. And, as important as calls from certain individuals may be, many people increasingly communicate via SMS or iMessage; it would be nice if messages from a select group of individuals could also be "whitelisted" just as calls can be.

Promoted Comments

Seems like an obvious missing feature here is calendar integration - I'd like to be able to choose the calendars for which, if there's an entry marked as 'busy' (such as you get if you've got an Exchange account) then DND engages automatically during that period.

These improvements make a lot of sense. I'm all for a finer-grained scheduling structure. However, what I'd really like to see are location-based controls on notifications and ringing. For example, I'd like the phone to go silent while I'm at work, yet turn back on when I leave the building for lunch, etc. Now, wouldn't that be grand?!

Does it have a blacklist? There are certain autodialers that seem to love calling me. I'd prefer it if I could just tell the phone to never tell me about it. Don't want a ring. Don't want a missed call. Don't want a voice mail. A bonus would be if an electric shock could be sent back to the caller.

My inconvenient pre-iOS6 version of DND is to power it off at night (hold power for ages, slide the red pill) and generally recharge during commuting / at my desk.

Just enabling Airplane is effective at stemming notifications, but makes it too tempting to pick up again and waste an hour if I wake up in the middle of the night. Having to wait for a power-on makes it less appealing.

Does this article seriously mean that iOS hasn't had any silent mode until this point?

My opinion of Apple and the backwards nature of the iPhone couldn't be lower but seriously? Is this true?

Troll harder. iOS has always had the ability to turn vibrate off while in Silent mode. DND just takes this one step further and prevents anything from happening - no screen lighting, no buzzing, no anything. Also, it's schedulable.

Does this article seriously mean that iOS hasn't had any silent mode until this point?

My opinion of Apple and the backwards nature of the iPhone couldn't be lower but seriously? Is this true?

There has been a silent mode from the very beginning. In fact the iPhone has always had a dedicated mute switch that turns off all ringers, with configurability regarding whether the phone still vibrates and whether media volume is synced with ringtone volume.

This Do Not Disturb feature takes it much further by letting you schedule the disabling of ringtones and other notifications, or just manually shutting off notifications. It's also nice that you can specify a certain group of contacts who are exempt from the Do Not Disturb. For example, I figure my parents won't call in the middle of the night unless it's an emergency, so I'd always like to get their calls no matter what.

Does this article seriously mean that iOS hasn't had any silent mode until this point?

My opinion of Apple and the backwards nature of the iPhone couldn't be lower but seriously? Is this true?

Troll harder. iOS has always had the ability to turn vibrate off while in Silent mode. DND just takes this one step further and prevents anything from happening - no screen lighting, no buzzing, no anything. Also, it's schedulable.

I didn't realise asking questions is trolling? (I'd point out that Android has had apps which do all this easily for several years now but considering almost all the 'new' features of iOS are features Android had years ago it's hardly worth it )

I was just surprised that an iPhone might not allow you to put it on silent. I am pleased that this is not the case. I am sometimes forced to use an iPhone at work so believe me, anything which make this less painful then it already is is a bonus.

I especially liked an example from earlier this week where it took so long to actually install the Hootsuite iOS application that I had the time to give a 5 - 10 minute talk on how to use social media after starting the install and still had to wait after my talk for it to finish. It's embarrassing frankly.

Does this article seriously mean that iOS hasn't had any silent mode until this point?

My opinion of Apple and the backwards nature of the iPhone couldn't be lower but seriously? Is this true?

Read the story and practice your reading comprehension before you post. Thanks!

Where does it say iPhone has silent mode? Also since it does and you can disable vibrate I'm not sure I see how this is a vast improvement over turning it on silent before bed? Sure it may light up but you can always turn the phone screen down.

That's what confused me the most, when I say the girlfriend bit I thought why not just use silent?

The weekend/weekday thing kills me. I get up at 5A on weekdays and 7-8A on the weekends (which for me is Friday through Sunday). So just set it for all my sleeping schedules and hope if I'm out on the weekend that I just check my phone often enough.

Does it have a blacklist? There are certain autodialers that seem to love calling me. I'd prefer it if I could just tell the phone to never tell me about it. Don't want a ring. Don't want a missed call. Don't want a voice mail.

This. Android has a call rejection feature and I miss it greatly. The only reason I have an iPhone is because my company picks up the phone bill.

Moto Phones already have this and Much more. It's called SmartActions. Basically, you can set Triggers for each actions. Triggers can be Specific Location, Time, connected to Specific WiFi, paired with Specific Bluetooth etc. And once SmartAction Trigger happens, your action will be Triggered to do what ever you want.

These improvements make a lot of sense. I'm all for a finer-grained scheduling structure. However, what I'd really like to see are location-based controls on notifications and ringing. For example, I'd like the phone to go silent while I'm at work, yet turn back on when I leave the building for lunch, etc. Now, wouldn't that be grand?!

These improvements make a lot of sense. I'm all for a finer-grained scheduling structure. However, what I'd really like to see are location-based controls on notifications and ringing. For example, I'd like the phone to go silent while I'm at work, yet turn back on when I leave the building for lunch, etc. Now, wouldn't that be grand?!

These improvements make a lot of sense. I'm all for a finer-grained scheduling structure. However, what I'd really like to see are location-based controls on notifications and ringing. For example, I'd like the phone to go silent while I'm at work, yet turn back on when I leave the building for lunch, etc. Now, wouldn't that be grand?!

There apps for that. Maybe not iOS, but Android.

Unfortunately, There are no apps for that on iOS. It should be technically possible (see the changes to the Find my Friends app).

How well does if work on Android? I can think of at least one scenario in which a location-based notification might be stymied. How would such a system tell if I'm at work on the 10th floor a multi storey building or at lunch on the ground floor of said structure?

Seems like an obvious missing feature here is calendar integration - I'd like to be able to choose the calendars for which, if there's an entry marked as 'busy' (such as you get if you've got an Exchange account) then DND engages automatically during that period.

These improvements make a lot of sense. I'm all for a finer-grained scheduling structure. However, what I'd really like to see are location-based controls on notifications and ringing. For example, I'd like the phone to go silent while I'm at work, yet turn back on when I leave the building for lunch, etc. Now, wouldn't that be grand?!

There apps for that. Maybe not iOS, but Android.

Unfortunately, There are no apps for that on iOS. It should be technically possible (see the changes to the Find my Friends app).

How well does if work on Android? I can think of at least one scenario in which a location-based notification might be stymied. How would such a system tell if I'm at work on the 10th floor a multi storey building or at lunch on the ground floor of said structure?

WiFi location. You can set it to activate within range of certain hotspots.

These improvements make a lot of sense. I'm all for a finer-grained scheduling structure. However, what I'd really like to see are location-based controls on notifications and ringing. For example, I'd like the phone to go silent while I'm at work, yet turn back on when I leave the building for lunch, etc. Now, wouldn't that be grand?!

These improvements make a lot of sense. I'm all for a finer-grained scheduling structure. However, what I'd really like to see are location-based controls on notifications and ringing. For example, I'd like the phone to go silent while I'm at work, yet turn back on when I leave the building for lunch, etc. Now, wouldn't that be grand?!

Then you have to run the GPS all the time. I love the location based reminders, but I almost never use them as it drains the battery that much faster.

These improvements make a lot of sense. I'm all for a finer-grained scheduling structure. However, what I'd really like to see are location-based controls on notifications and ringing. For example, I'd like the phone to go silent while I'm at work, yet turn back on when I leave the building for lunch, etc. Now, wouldn't that be grand?!

Then you have to run the GPS all the time. I love the location based reminders, but I almost never use them as it drains the battery that much faster.

You could leave WiFi on, but if your phone is set to scan every 15 seconds that can hurt battery life almost as much.

GPS only drains battery if it's in use though - so if the app allows you to set an interval that could help, and it'd only be in use a few seconds.

These improvements make a lot of sense. I'm all for a finer-grained scheduling structure. However, what I'd really like to see are location-based controls on notifications and ringing. For example, I'd like the phone to go silent while I'm at work, yet turn back on when I leave the building for lunch, etc. Now, wouldn't that be grand?!

Yes.

There are several apps that do this quite well on Android (Llama, Tasker, etc.). They also can use your cell tower location so that they don't consume extra battery. Maybe there's an iPhone app that can do the same?

These improvements make a lot of sense. I'm all for a finer-grained scheduling structure. However, what I'd really like to see are location-based controls on notifications and ringing. For example, I'd like the phone to go silent while I'm at work, yet turn back on when I leave the building for lunch, etc. Now, wouldn't that be grand?!

Then you have to run the GPS all the time. I love the location based reminders, but I almost never use them as it drains the battery that much faster.

You could leave WiFi on, but if your phone is set to scan every 15 seconds that can hurt battery life almost as much.

GPS only drains battery if it's in use though - so if the app allows you to set an interval that could help, and it'd only be in use a few seconds.

This is probably an example of the discourse Apple Engineers had. Eventually it went far enough that they decided that it wasn't ready.

I'm not trying to imply that its a bad idea (its a great idea), but rather they couldn't figure out a good enough way to implement it so it was cut.

This is probably an example of the discourse Apple Engineers had. Eventually it went far enough that they decided that it wasn't ready.

I'm not trying to imply that its a bad idea (its a great idea), but rather they couldn't figure out a good enough way to implement it so it was cut.

It'd be easy enough to enable WiFi, check the hotspots in range, then turn it back on an interval for a battery friendly location check - Tasker in particular can do this. I'm not sure what the iOS scan interval is, but I bet it's more power conscious than the default Android scan of 15 seconds - in either case you can just act on it when the OS scans too, a selectable option.

Seems like an obvious missing feature here is calendar integration - I'd like to be able to choose the calendars for which, if there's an entry marked as 'busy' (such as you get if you've got an Exchange account) then DND engages automatically during that period.

Similarly, I'd like to be able to set entire calendars and apps to ignore DND. I have my work schedule on my phone, and an alarm set to go off two hours before I'm supposed to be there so I can wake up. I would be nice if I could engage DND and have this alarm still fire. There may also be certain apps from which I always need the notifications.

Oh, and the ability to allow calls from your Favorites is nice, but it would be nicer if you could (optionally) also allow texts and/or email notifications from that user as well.

To me, the best way to handle DND is getting an ipod dock with audio line out in the base. I have one of these, and when the phone is in it, I get no notification sounds, but the alarm still works and the phone still rings. Perfect solution, except the screen still lights up. Cheap option - rag/towel/kleenex box in front of it.

I like that the new DND mode keeps the screen from lighting up... but I wish there were a way to exempt certain apps from it. I never get SMS/iMessages at night unless it's important, so I'd like those to come through but not e-mail or Facebook dings.